SARATOGA SPRINGS -- The City Council was scheduled to decide next week whether charter change will be on the November ballot, but that vote won't happen. However, there is still a chance the council could vote on the proposal in May.

The City Council will host a public hearing on the issue at 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, and council members will discuss the proposal during that night's meeting.

Non-partisan group Saratoga Citizen submitted a petition to the council in 2010 with the intention of getting its proposal to change the city's form of government from a commission to a council-manager structure on the November ballot. Under the proposal, the City Council would act as a legislative body that sets policies while a city manager carries out day-to-day operations in City Hall.

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The council rejected the petition for a number of reasons, but Saratoga Citizen sued and won the initial court case and an appeal.

However, the proposition put forward two years ago contained language that specified the election would take place in 2010 and the government would change by January 2012. It also laid out the members of the transition team, many of whom are no longer available to serve.

The question now is how to make the necessary changes to the document to put it up for a vote.

City Accounts Commissioner John Franck has proposed taking the substance of the Saratoga Citizen plan on as a City Council initiative. He took the Saratoga Citizen proposal, made adjustments to the dates and some grammar and left the City Council to appoint the transition team, but substantively maintained the proposal.

"I'm really just taking that document and making some administrative changes," he said.

And Saratoga Citizen organizer Patrick Kane agrees. "I'm just glad people will get a chance to vote on it," he said. "That's what it's really all about."

Kane said he has received an informal opinion from the Department of State indicating Franck's proposal is an appropriate method to get the measure on the ballot.

At the last City Council meeting, however, Mayor Scott Johnson took issue with the fact that Franck's proposal cites a different article of Municipal Home Rule than Saratoga Citizen invoked with its proposal. Johnson requested legal opinions from the Department of State and the New York Council of Mayors -- an organization that supported the city through its legal challenges to Saratoga Citizen's proposed charter -- before he votes on the issue.

"This is a unique situation that probably has not been found anywhere in the state," Johnson said. "Let's make sure we get it done right rather than done quickly."

Johnson said Saratoga Citizen also has the option of having a judge make the adjustments to the proposal to get it on the ballot.

Franck had been expecting to put the issue to the City Council for a vote Tuesday, but the City Attorney's Office informed him that the legal notice for voting on the issue Tuesday had not been properly submitted because it lacked the local law number for his proposal.

"I have not had to do that in seven years," Franck said Friday, "but I guess it was an oversight on my part."

Kane, however, called it a "stall tactic."

"It appears that Mayor Johnson is yet again trying to stand in the way of the voters of Saratoga Springs," he said, calling the claimed impropriety in the posting an "obscure technicality."

Johnson, on the other hand, said claims that he is trying to stall the vote are "foolish."

"I've always been willing to let it go on the ballot as long as it's legal," he said. He wants to hold off on the vote until the legal opinions are in.

"It's a matter of a month," he said. "There is no rush on this. ... I'm willing to wait for the legal analysis."

Franck, though, said unless he's contacted in writing by the Department of State, he will put the issue on the May 15 City Council agenda for a vote.

"It is pretty clear to me, after two lawsuits, that the courts want this to go forward," he said.